How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Santa Clarita California?  - Family Law Attorneys Santa Clarita - Divorce Attorney Santa Clarita California

It’s a trick question. You do not want to get the greatest divorce lawyer or attorney in Santa Clarita, California There are a large number of divorce attorneys in Santa Clarita that would certainly do an every bit as fine effort for you. It would undoubtedly be inconceivable to figure out which one is the “absolute best.”

The real issue for you, the Santa Clarita divorce consumer, is just how to identify just one of those Santa Clarita top-notch divorce attorneys at the exact standards of assistance as well as price for the facts of your unique scenario – while keeping away from all of the usual, as well as sometimes harmful, challenges of the Santa Clarita divorce lawyer hiring choice.

If you know what those challenges are (I will advise you in this article) as well as if you have the proper perspective, specifically that you want to make your Santa Clarita divorce lawyer fit your situation as well as not permit the attorney to compel your situation to fit his or her rigid practice profile, after that you raise significantly your chances of nailing the Santa Clarita divorce lawyer employing choice. Getting you through that choice effectively is the purpose of this article.

First, let’s list the 4 points to keep away from:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is entirely possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to acquire free family law documents from California’s judicial council or family court websites. Those free divorce documents will be uncompleted, obviously. You can then try to finish as well as file the documents at your regional Los Angeles County divorce court by yourself without professional aid. This is feasible – nevertheless extremely improbable, very challenging, complicated, discouraging as well as incredibly lengthy.

DIY divorce would certainly be practically out of the question, as well as not smart even to try, in any  complicated or disputed family law process. It would certainly be extremely improbable to be effective if you have minor children of the marriage or have any assets or debts to be specified in the case or have custody, visitation or support agreements in your case. It would definitely be unwise in a case involving domestic violence. DIY would certainly additionally be tough if you work or if you put any kind of value on your own time. Family law forms as well as processeses are developed by attorneys to confuse you to make sure that you hire – a lawyer.

Please excuse me if I do not spend way too much time on the DIY danger. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that folks that start the divorce procedure with the intent to try to get a cost-free divorce are going to  try Do-It-Yourself divorce whatever. For one reason or another, possibly economic, there is absolutely nothing I‘ve been able to discover to persuade them not to.

DIY in Family Law is always false economy. You WILL probably screw it up, as well as screwed-up cases are far more difficult as well as costly to correct as well as finalize. Don’t play this game. The system is developed by attorneys to confuse you as well as compel you to employ a divorce lawyer. There are now economical options offered– see listed below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

2. Avoid Traditional Santa Clarita Family Law Attorneys if Your Case is Likely to be Uncontested:

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the litigants will not be contesting any issues, including the divorce itself. The litigants do not have to be cheerful as well as they do not have to like each other. They are either totally or mostly in agreement on all issues as well as are smart enough to understand that traditional full-representation divorce attorneys (with substantial retainers as well as billable hours) would certainly be the only winners if they disputed relatively trivial issues in their divorce.

Standard complete representation by a regional Santa Clarita divorce lawyer is when that lawyer will represent you in all facets of your divorce matter. It is extremely likely to be a good professional service, however it is way over-priced.

If you have a contested case, a complex case, a high-value case or a case that entails domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, complete representation by a Santa Clarita divorce lawyer is NOT to be avoided. It is a necessity.

A contested case indicates that you as well as your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the case. A complicated case has legal complexities such as tax issues, current business issues, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of countless additional intricate legal scenarios. A high-value case indicates that your marital estate is huge. There is no specific dollar limit. Absolutely, if you have a high 7-figure net marital estate or greater, that is a high-value case.

If you suspect that you have a contested,complex or high-value case, you do. Hire an expert as well as high priced Santa Clarita divorce lawyer for complete conventional representation. Look for a certified Family Law specialist. You will not be sorry you did.

If you do NOT have a contested, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT need conventional complete representation by a Santa Clarita divorce lawyer. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a Santa Clarita divorce lawyer becomes a risk to your economic position. Steer clear of it.

Naturally, if you call or email a conventional Santa Clarita divorce lawyer, they will not tell you that you do not need their complete representation service. In fact, they will try to frighten the crap out of you by telling you that you without a doubt require their service which your case will get screwed up without it.

That could possibly come to pass– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll share with you next how to prevent potentially 90+% of the potential danger of getting your case screwed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T employ a conventional Santa Clarita divorce attorney on a complete representation basis.

Your case could also potentially get screwed up if you DID employ a complete representation Santa Clarita divorce attorney. That’s also not probable, however it could happen.

However, what will DEFINITELY happen if you employ a conventional complete representation Santa Clarita divorce attorney to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed financially. Your case may be dealt with effectively, however you will overbuy unneeded services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no requirement for that to happen nowadays. Your mothers and fathers had few other options on their family law employing decisions. Your grandparents had no other options. You have numerous valid options to make your Santa Clarita uncontested divorce lawyer employing choice based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Santa Clarita divorce attorneys. Keep reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the biggest danger you face in your employing choice in regards to damage to your future legal and economic safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a huge market. And it is incredibly harmful to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills offer slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software, charges lower than MOST attorneys, no legal recommendations, no legal knowledge, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance coverage, no knowledge of Los Angeles County divorce policies, no local knowledge about Los Angeles County guidelines of court, local Los Angeles County forms, local practices or the policies of specific local judges in the Santa Clarita area and no expert interest in you or your case. And all within a completely uncontrolled Wild-West market rampant with all kinds of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill charges average about $300, however what you get for that $300 charge is extremely little– simply prepared California divorce documents. Any other services provided are all up-sold on the basis that once they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – leave money already spent? You are at their mercy and you are totally unprotected. And they recognize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s website for a great analysis of just some of the more common frauds and up-sells to be discovered in the online divorce market.

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll constantly be contending with low-level, inexperienced, indifferent, high turn-over personnel, call center employees and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. Nobody will conduct any type of analysis on your case to protect you and any minor children from future legal or financial damage. Customer support will be horrible since it does not have to be anything else. You will never have the ability to meet with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is very likely that none of them are located in Santa Clarita or perhaps in California

If you hire an online divorce mill believing you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your household end up spending for their mistakes for years, that is NOT a cheap divorce!

4. Avoid Me-Too Lawyer Advertising Platforms:

Me-Too Lawyer Advertising Platforms are online lawyer directory sites like Avvo, FindLaw, LegalZoom, Justia, Google Screened, Google Business Profile (formerly GMB) and now even Yelp. This is the latest risk to keep away from in your Santa Clarita divorce lawyer employing choice.

However, the potential damage here is not huge– nowhere near the damage done regularly by non-lawyer online divorce mills or undoubtedly the damage likely to be done by you to your own case with DIY divorce.

If you hire a Santa Clarita divorce attorney you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to overpay to some extent, depending upon how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, however not as badly as if you had employed a conventional complete representation Santa Clarita family law attorney directly.

Undoubtedly, you do not wish to employ a conventional complete representation Santa Clarita divorce attorney you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, however the important factor here is that you do not wish to employ a conventional complete representation Santa Clarita divorce attorney to handle your basic uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

The danger with employing a Santa Clarita divorce attorney that you stumble on ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re working with a below average Santa Clarita divorce attorney– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Santa Clarita divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your trade however does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Santa Clarita lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to convince you that s/he is the unequalled resolution to your case. You do not want to have that lawyer.

You could do with a Santa Clarita divorce lawyer who is innovative, vibrant, unique, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you hire a Santa Clarita divorce lawyer to look after your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even care for his or her own business interests aggressively and decisively? You’re trying to find a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Santa Clarita lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by joining Avvo and doing nothing else.

Mass-lawyer finder platforms like Avvo are free of cost to join, which is why every divorce lawyer in Los Angeles County will have registered. So you must not disqualify a Santa Clarita divorce lawyer only because s/he has an Avvo account.

However, you must not think that such a Santa Clarita divorce lawyer is very smart or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of cost for the lawyer to enroll in, the lawyer needs to then start to pay constantly increasing charges on a bid-basis, constantly competing versus other local Los Angeles County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the top page of the platform’s website. If that lawyer does not pay more, s/he’ll be on page 3 or 5 of the mass-lawyer website in even a medium-sized town. If that lawyer does not keep bidding up his or her charges, she’ll not get sufficient trade to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top very few attorneys in each town taking almost all the business– based on how much advertising charges they can pay– not based on how good they are or on how they have actually configured their offerings to suit your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your business is the quantity of money s/he is prepared to pay to get it, not the quality and skill of his or her service offerings.

If that me-too divorce lawyer in Santa Clarita pays more to the mass-lawyer finder platform and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a featured position on the platform’s website and will get more sales, however his or her expenses of getting business will continuously increase while his or her charges are relatively set by the flat need for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Santa Clarita divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play scheme will constantly need increasingly more lower profit cases simply to keep up with sales expenses. You do not want that business-foolishness in somebody you will trust with your legal and economic future.

And yes, that lawyer is going to use the same brain to care for your case as s/he used to screw his or her own business into the ground.

How to Find the Best Santa Clarita Divorce Lawyer – Family Law Attorneys Santa Clarita - Divorce Attorney Santa Clarita California

So above are 4 factors to keep away from: DIY divorce, traditional full-service lawyer representation in basic uncontested cases, unlicensed and uncontrolled online divorce mills and boring me-too drone attorneys who are really bad at the business of law practice.

So what do you in fact look for in a Santa Clarita divorce attorney?

Before I advise you, I wish to set the stage by offering you 2 amazing statistics that I did not presume true when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to make the most of them in your Santa Clarita divorce lawyer hiring choice:

1. There is a glut of lawyers on the market and it’s serious. According to the ABA National Lawyer Population Survey, in 2017, the whole legal profession lost some 1400 jobs while almost 20,000 brand new lawyers have been added – just in 2017. And the ABA has just certified a huge new law school down in Texas. And this has been trending for years. And all of this surplus of supply while the demand for legal services has been flat or, as in the case of family law, diminishing because of DIY divorce and the overwhelming success of fraudulent and incompetent online divorce mills (both caused by the Internet).
2. From 1988 to 2012, the average solo lawyer practitioner’s yearly income, after adjusting for inflation, dropped from $70,747 to $49,130. Read that last sentence again. This is based on published data from the IRS compiled from solo lawyer practitioner tax returns for the years specified. The legal profession is in serious economic decline. More so in areas of consumer law, like uncontested divorce, where the Internet has reduced the knowledge gap between lawyers and consumers.

What to Look For:

Business-savvy lawyers who want to participate in the divorce industry are under considerable price and business-model pressure right now. Take advantage! You want to hire a Santa Clarita divorce lawyer who has responded to this professional crisis in the following ways.

You want as many of the following factors as you can find in one Santa Clarita divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Santa Clarita divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this means that you only buy the legal services your case actually requires. You will typically do your own filing of docs at court and schedule the service of filed docs on your spouse/partner. The divorce lawyer will evaluate your docs before they are submitted to court, determine problem concerns in your case and suggest the very best options based upon legal recommendations and local knowledge. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can tell they do not understand or do not want you to understand, simply hang up. They do not yet get it. Carry on. Don’t inform them.
3. Uses online divorce software that enables you to log into a client portal and enterall of the information in your case.  This not only saves time and money, but it literally empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all datain your case. Likewise, there’s no 50-page paper copyone-size-fits-all questionnaire for you to get through in the lawyer’s waiting room.
4. Uses other cloud-based software and apps – listen for buzz phrases like “client portal” and “virtual law practice.” Ask about e-filing and listen closely to determine if the lawyer even knows what it is.
5. Doesn’t have a fancy office in a downtown high-rise or across from the courthouse. You don’t want to pay those rents. This is even more so during C-19. You’re looking for a lawyer in a strip mall or even one who works at home and has one or more shared office arrangements for client meetings. Don’t use a lawyer who has obviously big expenses – YOU pay them!
6. Look for a competitive edge. Look for a lawyer who understands what is going on around him or her in his or her chosen profession. The practice of law is legal education, knowledge and experience attached to a business model. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services or online divorce interviews and they act like law practice is ONLY a noble profession and not a competitive business, hang up. Don’t educate them. They don’t yet get it.
7. Specialization – You don’t want to hire a lawyer who is a jack-of-all-trades on the basis that s/he might get hired for something. There are many different areas of law practice. They are very different from each other. Specialization is the name of the game today. Look at the lawyer’s website. It will tell you whether s/he is trying to get work in numerous areas of practice. It doesn’t matter if the lawyer handles maybe 2 areas of law, particularly if they are both areas of consumer law, such as divorce and bankruptcy. However, if you see that the primary practice area is DUI or personal injury or criminal law and family law appears to be an add-on, move on. Don’t explain.  Just move on. They do not handle enough family law to be any good.  They use family law as an unwanted add-on.  They will not be experienced enough and they will have to charge you a lot because you will be one of very few family law clients. Also, personal injury law paydays are huge and criminal law cases are critical to someone’s personal freedom. Where do you think your family law case will fit into that lawyer’s busy day?
8. Look for a spark – You are looking for a lawyer who has positioned himself or herself in such a way as to convince you that s/he is the unique local divorce lawyer in Santa Clarita that is best suited to resolving your case and your specific problems. This is hard to define, but you will understand if that lawyer makes this connection with you. If there is no such spark on the first exposure, there never will be. Move on.
9. Look for Unique Action – Obviously, this does not involve ONLY standing in line with every other lawyer at Avvo or similar me-too lawyer platforms. Avvo owns all of that attorney’s blog posts and may control his or her entire marketing outreach. Avvo takes money from that lawyer in order to sign up more lawyers in Santa Clarita lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Santa Clarita. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Santa Clarita. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Santa Clarita has a 1-800-DIVORCE.

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